Looking to get married? Try a Christian college

(RNS) Of the top 25 colleges where men are likely to meet their spouse, all are private Christian institutions, according to an analysis done by Sofus Macskassy and Lada Adamic, researchers on Facebook's data science team. More than 60 percent of the top 25 colleges where women are likely to meet their spouse are also private religious schools.

Katherine Burgess

Katherine Burgess has lived in California, Cambodia and Tennessee. She has covered subjects as varied as a United Nations tribunal, church leadership conferences and a maximum security prison. She is currently based in Washington, D.C.

17 Comments

Doc B

Noticed that at least 4 (maybe more that I don’t recognize) of the top 12 are from the relatively small Church of Christ denomination. I wonder which denominations encourage intradenominational marriage more than others. It seems that the Church of Christ probably does.

Tony

What if a young person from one of the genuine, ancient, and Apostolic Churches–say, Catholic or Orthodox–is seeking a college where s/he might find a spouse who’s not a nutty, teetotal, Rapture-obsessed Fundie?

Orthodox Protestant *is* Christian, Tony. We who hold that term happily hold to the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Athanasian Creed/Quicunque Vult, and the Contantinopolitan-Chalcedonian Creed. By those symbols/definitions, we are both Catholic and Orthodox.

And, not all Reformational churches (orthodox Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican) are nutty, teetotal, or rapture obsessed. Most aren’t. Most are sober, appreciate the good gifts Christ has given us to be used to His glory, and think, oh, Hal Lindsay, Harold Camping, and the Scofield Reference Bible, to name a few of the far too many who *are* so obsessed, are wrongly dividing the Word of Truth. Sadly, friend, you slander many.

Now, that said, only eleven of these twelve schools are Christian. I’d exclude Brigham Young U as a Protestant school or even a Christian one by any orthodox and catholic definition. It is Mormon. The LDS “Church” is anti-Trinitarian. They believe in a multiplicity of gods, of whom we worship three particular ones, according to their teachings. All the above creeds/symbols/definitions they would reject.

Tony

Quite right you are, Phil..my apologies. The “magisterial” Protestant groups of which you speak–Anglican, Lutheran, and high-church Reformed–are certainly not part of the hardcore-Fundie camp.

It just struck me as peculiar that nearly all these schools lean more in the Fundie direction–stridently low-church, largely Dispensational pre-mill, strictly Credobaptist, and basically aligned with the broad morass of American Evangelicalism that looks at anything remotely resembling liturgy the way vampires look at sunlight.

Also, agree with you totally re: BYU. Mormonism, by its rejection of the Trinity, has placed itself outside the realm of Christianity.

[…] Looking to get married? Try a Christian college (RNS) When Dordt College graduates Jordan Harmelink and Rachel Tennant said “I do” at their July wedding, they joined the masses of graduates who meet their spouse at private Christian colleges. Dordt College graduates Jordan and Rachel Harmelink … Read more on Religion News Service […]